The horsemeat scandal is what neo-liberal capitalism leads to........cut corners, cheat, and sell the fuckers any old shite as long as we're maximising our profits.

It is the result of the politics of greed that has been encouraged for decades. Almost every business, not just the food industry, is basically in the business of ripping off it's customers for as much as they can. The poor are becoming null and void......nobody cares what they eat, if they can afford to eat, and they are becoming viewed more and more as worthless scum.

As you can imagine, there are some amusing 'tweets' circulating on this subject, some involving Richard III's lost horse and others mentioning Rebekah Brooks and her police horse. However, this has to be my favourite:-

BREAKING NEWS: Tests carried out on Lib Dem lasagne have shown that it is 100% Tory.

Ivan wrote:As you can imagine, there are some amusing 'tweets' circulating on this subject, some involving Richard III's lost horse and others mentioning Rebekah Brooks and her police horse. However, this has to be my favourite:-

BREAKING NEWS: Tests carried out on Lib Dem lasagne have shown that it is 100% Tory.

I have a couple of favourites - one to the effect that the Tory party has shown trace contamination with braincells, the other was in the commons the other day about it containing traces of stalking horse.

The ignorant idiots who are saying 'oo well really darling there's nothing wrong with horsemeat really, I've enjoyed a lovely horse steak in france la di da.....meats meat it's probably ok and just as good for you as beef', are entirely missing what this issue is about

With any issue like this, there's two elements, though.1) Something alien and unexpected is in our food - are we in danger? 2) Something alien and unexpected is in the cheaper forms of food - does this demonstrate comtempt for poorer people who buy the cheaper foodstuffs?

Personally, I'm quite pleased the 'ignorant idiots' are helping to defuse the very real fear that people may have that they have been poisoned, while really wanting to take issue with the 'unfettered capitalism' that results in people not getting the wholesome food they think they are buying. Whether or not horsemeat is good food, the issue of course is that adulteration of the food of the poor shows contempt, and cost cutting in government departments leads to lowering of standards, which mostly impacts poorer people, who usually can't afford to go to the farm shop and buy their meat from the breeder.

Not sure all the 'humour' around the issue is terribly helpful, as it serves perhaps to trivialise what is in fact a very serious and concerning issue.

By the way, has anyone noticed that a Tory government always seems to result in some sort of food horror (I'm thinking CJD, I'm thinking Edwina Curry and eggs)

Seeing the funny side of something doesn't in any way mean not 'getting' the serious issues as well. I joke about Tory politicians often, and I'm deadly serious about them.

You just need a bit of light relief occasionally, and it just happens that horses and meat lends itself more readily to humour than, say, people being penalised out of their homes or starved into needing help from a Foodbank.

sickchip. People laughed about Hitler during the Second World War and even made up songs about him (with a part of his anatomy being in the Albert Hall etc), but it doesn’t mean they weren’t deadly serious about defeating him.

You’re right – this is about unfettered capitalism and would have appealed to Thatcher with her “don’t worry if you don’t make anything, just make money” philosophy. It’s also about deception. But then why should firms bother if they lie to their customers and give them horse in their burgers, even though it says beef on the packet? After all, we have a government of serial liars who are duping the public almost on a daily basis.

An even more worrying aspect is the probability that this is part of an international criminal conspiracy. Horse may be okay to eat, but do criminals worry about the standard of hygiene required when food is being prepared? I think not.

The Food Standards Agency seems more concerned with "shifting stock" than with the Nation's health, and a searching review of their activities might do no harm when the dust has settled.

Someone should have been alerted when it became apparent that the supply-chain extended across five Countries and through several intermediaries, all of whom MUST have been expecting to make a profit.

In our village we used to have a Butcher who slaughtered animals brought in from within a five mile radius. It was common to see one of our nearby sheep farmers come in to buy a nice piece of well-hung beef at the weekend. Mike gave up the struggle when EU regulations made him buy his meat from a Regional slaughterhouse instead of preparing it himself all the way through from cattletruck to shop counter.